The Antichrist Read Online Free PDF Page A

occurred at the time of the Tower of Babel but, rather, a confusion
within
the clarity itself. This clarity was not the same as the false clarity of a wanderer in the desert who takes a
fata Morgana
as reality and heads towards it. No, it was such that reality itself became a
fata Morgana!
It did not dissolve into the air when we reached it. It was physical; it was tangible. It was not our tired senses that gave in to an illusion but our fresh and well rested senses. As we were being led astray we were not suffering from what might be considered sickness or exhaustion; rather, it appeared to us to be quite natural. Our reasoning was intact, our senses were alive and the goal lay very clearly in front of us. We even reached it. But it was, none the less, a trick. And thus we are like wanderers in the desert who are capable of catching up with the deceptive mirage that beckons them, of taking up residence in houses and castles that do not exist, of quenching their thirst from fake springs, of resting in the shade of palms that are not there and refreshing themselves with dates that are not really fruit. They then believe that their thirst has been quenched, but they are still thirsty; thattheir bellies are full, but they are still hungry; that they have shelter, but they have none. So it is. Our satiety is still hunger and thirst; our home is still homelessness; and what we call reality is still an illusion, for what we call knowledge is a hoax. We believe that we are drinking from plentiful springs, but they are parched wells that are themselves thirsty.

HOLLYWOOD, THE HADES OF MODERN MAN
    This could be recognized in the ancient faces. They were all distinguished from each other as symbols of the inexhaustibility and abundance of God, and they were at the same time all like one another because of the consciousness that all diversity is born from a single Creator. This eternal combination of similarity and difference, both through God, characterizes the ancient faces. – Max Picard,
The Human Face
    If I may take but a single example from the vast field of our progress: we are able to speak with each other across thousands of miles, but can we therefore understand one another? Are we speaking the truth to each other simply because we have placed a miracle between us, one that consists of making our voices heard across thousands of miles? And when a friend in Australia speaks to his friend in Colombia, as they say ‘by wireless’, does this ‘technical wonder’ eliminate malice, lies or treachery from their speech? Isn’t it, in fact, easier to lie when the speakers are not face to face? And even if it should become possible for me to see my friend in Cairo while he sees my face in Paris, would we recognize each other more easily that way than when we are standing next to each other in the same room? Shouldn’t it be more difficult to recognize each other? Can a telescope transform the inability of my eye to recognize into an ability to recognize? On the contrary – the telescope,even if it is perfect, merely strengthens the visual acuity of an eye, no matter if the eye sees falsely or correctly, but it cannot change a deceptive, lying eye into a genuine and true eye. And if the false heart of a false friend were to tell me of his affection from a million miles distant, through use of the most powerful loudspeakers, the so-called technical wonder would not have transformed the falseness of his heart into integrity but would only have magnified it. And if we have succeeded in making shadows move on the screen of the cinema as if they were living people and, further still, to speak and sing, their motions, words and songs are by no means honest and genuine; rather, these wonders of the screen signify that the reality that they so remarkably copy wasn’t difficult to recreate for the very reason that it wasn’t real. In fact, the real people, the living ones, had already become so shadowy that